Over the next few days, I want to try to prepare a substantive post on Bart Ehrman, the lapsed-Christian Biblical scholar, head of the religion department at UNC – Chapel Hill, who is attracting much attention these days – his Misquoting Jesus is selling quite well – it’s #14 on Amazon as I speak (or, er..write), and he was on Jon Stewart’s show last week. Not bad for a book on textual criticism.

As I said, I want to prepare a good, thorough post on Ehrman and this book because obviously it’s something the general public is interested in. If anyone has any good links on this – substantive critiques or evaluations of this book, in particular, please sent them my way. I have a few already, most notably scholar Ben Witherington’s post on the book, but I could use more.

By the way, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why was not the original title of the book. I picked up a pre-pub copy last year at RBTE – same cover, but the title was The Monk and the Messiah: The Story Behind Who Changed the New Testament and Why.

Obviously, the first title wasn’t sexy enough. Even changing "New Testament" to "Bible" has a little more sizzle, since the word "Bible" would bring up the association of  "God’s Word" in a way that "New Testament" might not in the reader’s subconscious.

No comments as yet – email me good links on this. I’ll credit you!

Ehrman’s next book, due out in May: Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend